


a morning

by stag_von_simp



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Kissing, Love Confessions, Mutual Pining, Originally Posted on Tumblr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-16
Updated: 2020-05-16
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:27:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24210601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stag_von_simp/pseuds/stag_von_simp
Summary: There is a scrap of paper wadded in his pocket.  On it, he’s summarized a confession for her.Only now does he realize that it can’t possibly be impressive enough.He slumps, attention crashing back down to the paper, the sketch, his silence, and his shame.  Flayn’s laughter as the fish dart around her tingles in his ears, and it almost hurts, knowing just how badly he’d love to smack his lips to hers, so gentle, and drink that laughter down.***Or: Ignatz wants to tell Flayn...something.  She beats him to the punch.
Relationships: Flayn/Ignatz Victor
Comments: 4
Kudos: 22





	a morning

The aroma of springtime and the stench of false hope curl off the waters of the river as one. As soon as Ignatz and Flayn get there, the latter plops down decisively at the rim of the water, yanks her boots off her feet, and dunks her toes into the water. Flecks of water jump at the attention, tickled by her wiggling toes, and Ignatz finds himself unable to look away long enough to unpack the picnic he’d spent hours loading in the basket.

Any spread of delicacies he could possibly devise, honestly, aren’t worthy of having _those_ lips wrapped around them, aren’t worthy of her teeth or her tongue. So he keeps the basket stuffed, pretends it isn’t there - except for when he rummages to the bottom, for the sleeve of paper he just had to bring along. With the sun sprinkling its crystalline tears across the river’s waters, and Flayn here basking in the glow of the season, how could he not commit it all to paper?

He hunkers over the paper on his knees, plucking a pen from his pocket and scribbling down the most important features to begin: the mold of Flayn’s perfectly-round head streaks the paper first, followed by the twirl of her hair down her shoulders. The eyelashes find their way on before her eyes; he finds himself absently prodding his pen against his chin and wondering how they ever sprouted up to be that long. 

It’s as if she was drawn by the goddess with the sole intent of making him breathless.

“I should have brought along a fishing pole,” Flayn muses, hushed, as if humbled by the beauty of their surroundings. What she doesn’t know is that she blots every tree - every quivering dandelion, every gem of sunlight - into obscurity, with the way she shines. “The fish seem quite zealous today, and rather daring as well.” She dips a hand into the water, giggles; the sound is scorched right across Ignatz’s heart like the most beautiful of scars. “So close I am able to touch them.”

“Mmm.” It’s all he can manage. Flayn clucks her tongue, dissatisfied, before edging deeper into the river. The hem of her skirt crinkles as the water bites it. 

There is a scrap of paper wadded in his pocket. On it, he’s summarized a confession for her.

Only now does he realize that it can’t possibly be impressive enough.

He slumps, attention crashing back down to the paper, the sketch, his silence, and his shame. Flayn’s laughter as the fish dart around her tingles in his ears, and it almost hurts, knowing just how badly he’d love to smack his lips to hers, so gentle, and drink that laughter down.

“Whatever could you be drawing? Another attempt at the Goddess’s likeness, perhaps?”

Enraptured in his sad fantasies as he is, he hadn’t heard her scrabbling over to peek over his shoulder. Now, he starts, all of his attention whipping to her. “Uh. Perhaps. In a way.”

“I see,” Flayn says - as Ignatz simultaneously prays that she doesn’t. “She is so beautiful, by your hand. Though I can’t help but notice…you draw her in such a way, she nearly resembles me.”

Something in Ignatz’s head pops loose; in whooshes a sound like a howling storm, because she knows, _she knows_ , she sees and she knows and–

“I am flattered, however, that you would even consider a connection between someone so holy as the Goddess and myself. Thank you, Ignatz.”

Ignatz blows out a breath. “I-It wasn’t actually meant to be the Goddess. She’s–”

“Oh, so it is me after all?” Flayn races to get out. Ignatz, shame spiraling through his blood like a chill, jerks his chin down in the curtest of nods. A laugh - Flayn’s laugh, unmistakable and fluttering through his chest like a breeze, dissolving in his heart - chimes in his ear. “I certainly hoped as much. That’s incredibly kind. But…would you allow me to be a bit forward?”

A shift within him, as his heart screeches into his throat. “Go ahead.”

“I am simply trying to figure out whether or not this is a confession of sorts. A confession of your feelings for me.”

Another shift; this one must be his heart diving down to his stomach. A storm begins to clamber inside of him, like a sickness, ready to pounce on his tongue, drip down his chin in that chain of irreversible words he wants nothing more than to purge out already. “H-Huh?”

“I, uh…apologies, that was even more out of line than I thought it would be. But I will not cower away from it any longer. I was hoping you brought me here for more than the view. I wished you had invited me to spend the morning with you to admit your feelings. I still wish, in fact.”

“No…” Because it can’t be true; _it can’t be true_. Ignatz Victor, floundering feet and turbulent cheeks, nibbled tongue and dreams hurled to the winds, could never have luck like this.

“Oh, it isn’t, then? That is…disappointing. I have been hoping for a day like this for a while now. Us, detached from our problems, if for only a moment. You, with a confession for me waiting beneath your tongue, free at last. I envisioned it would be an evening,” Flayn rambles. “That said, when you arranged this picnic, I decided I could settle for the morning as well. As long as you were saying the words I was waiting for.”

_It can’t be true._

“You of all people, Flayn. I thought you were above mocking a poor soul for his stupid feelings, but I suppose it’s just too fun to tease this particular poor soul,” Ignatz says, more anger punching into his voice than he’d meant to allow, but here it is, bloody and messy and _everywhere_ , and it’s not like he can crowd those words back into his stomach, right? He couldn’t commit to the crumpled confession in his pocket, but he can certainly commit to this. “I thought you were kinder than this,” he spits. “Flayn, I mean, I’m obviously in love with you, there’s no reason for you to–”

His rant, praise the Goddess, is clipped short when a sudden warmth grips him around the mouth. His tongue melts. He doesn’t need it, just this filthy mouth.

This filthy mouth, which Flayn is embracing with her own graceful one.

Loath as he is to admit it, he’s been haunted by thoughts of this very event for months, as sleep skulked right outside his bedroom door, beyond his reach. Imagining the curve of her smile against his own lips, how his mouth would prickle with shock before disappearing into her own, one possessing the other in an overlap, an eclipse of one soul over another in need. How her touch could coax sparks to the outside of his face, how her mouth would urge his own to lead the dance for once. How she would bow out for breath only when both of them were seconds away from suffocation, panting and sweating and beaming ear to ear until they ached, and beaming anyway, because pain would be banished to the past after that first kiss. 

The real experience does stray from his own vision, but not too much:

It’s still the best thing that ever happened to him. The prickle comes. It stings in all the right ways, and _only_ in the right ways. But it’s chaste, just a split second of floating before Flayn gropes for the ground beneath her again. 

The smile she shoots him once she’s finished - mischievous, and proud, and all the things Flayn is, all the things he’s etched into the fringe of her lashes on the paper he’s completely forgotten about - makes up for the lost time. 

“You didn’t have to…” Ignatz starts, but Flayn pokes another kiss to his lips, the staccato beat of a butterfly’s wings, before he can finish. He barely wants to, now. 

“Well, of course I didn’t have to,” she tells him. “But I felt so inclined, and as we’re alone, I saw no reason to resist. If my brother were here…”

Ignatz’s cheeks flare. “Oh Goddess, Seteth wouldn’t approve at all.”

“I’m certain I can sway him, if he knows just how fond of you I am. And…I am correct, in thinking you are every bit as fond of me?”

“How in heavens could I not be?” he says, and when the third kiss is exchanged, he’s nearly positive it was him who leaned in first.

**Author's Note:**

> hi there!! thanks for reading my fic, you rock <333
> 
> if you like it, then feel free to come hang out with me on tumblr; i'm @stag-of-almyra there and always happy to make friends!!


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